Dark Is This Night
by ToadsArePurdy
Summary: A Khajiit is captured by a group of bandits and is taken to The Pits; a grand fighting ring hidden in the mountains of Markarth known in the underground for its bloody fights between men, mer and dangerous creatures of all kinds. Veejah must find a way to escape before she becomes dead meat herself. Rating may change to M for gore/adult content later on.


Chapter 1

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"Your valuables, now."

Veejah's fur stood on end, there were three of them all armed to the teeth, and by the looks of it, they weren't the kinds of folk to play bad pranks on unsuspecting Khajiit. The one who spoke, a pretty Nord with surprisingly soft looking blond hair raised his sword tip to her throat, touching it. She flinched at the contact.

"You know, I _really_ don't have all morning." He said rather mildly for someone who was ready to poke a hole in her neck. "Either hand it over now, or I… might get a little bit _physical_ ," he said with a smirk and a gleam in his eye.

Veejah hesitated only a moment before hastily slipping her pack off, holding it out for the unusually handsome, albeit scary Nord.

"Watch her." The tip of his sword left her neck and she let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The man took her bag, and proceeded to dump her things on the ground. If she wasn't so caught off guard and fearful at the moment, she would've been pissed to see her belongings dumped in the dirt. All her tools… her lively hood…

'I-It's all I have. Honest! Can I-"

"Shut it, cat." Veejah shut her mouth. For the moment at least. It had been the smallest of the three who had spoke, a Breton girl with a mane of wild, dark brown hair that appeared to have a mind of its own. Veejah had a feeling that the Breton really didn't like her, it was in the way she stood, how she gripped her drawn ax and glared with narrowed brown eyes. Maybe she hated Khajiit. That happened sometimes, especially she found out, in Skyrim. Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, quite a few native Nords had never even seen one of the beast folk before her. Some of them looked on with mild interest, others distrust, while others appeared to think she was some kind of abomination. It's not like she was going to _eat_ them, she was a Khajiit, not a _werecat_.

"Anythin' good?" the last bandit, and by far the largest spoke. His voice was deep and gravelly like distantly rumbling thunder on a humid summer evening. Veejah eyed him warily, the man could be mistaken for a bloody giant, she wondered if he had to get his heavy armor custom made.

Like the pretty boy, he was a Nord, blond hair too, only his was considerably more dirty and less silky in appearance. Veejah wouldn't be surprised if he was the type to 'bathe in the blood of his enemies'. Or perhaps he only preyed upon poor travelers unlucky enough to cross his path, she hoped she wouldn't become another notch on his belt. A hunter once told her that each notch on his knifes' sheath was a deer he had killed. Maybe bandits did that too. She wouldn't doubt it.

"Well, got this pretty little dagger," Pretty-boy, as Veejah dubbed him, brandished her one and only weapon. It was a steel dagger and a real nice one at that. She had put plenty of time and effort into that little hunk of metal. Originally she'd found it busted up and rusted on the side of the road on her way to Skyrim and, after seeing that it was made with quality material and skilled hands, she decided to restore it back to its original splendor. She thought she did pretty good, liked to think it was better than the original.

She glared, pinning her ears back when she saw the Nord twirl it around skillfully. She was such an _airhead_. If she wasn't so dumb, maybe she would've thought to keep her damn knife _on_ her and not in her stupid bag. Away from _that_ bastard. She wanted to snatch her knife back and stab him with it, see how he liked _that_.

Until now, she'd never been put in a situation dire enough where she had to use her blade on someone. On animals, yes, but never men or mer. Fortunately for her, or perhaps unfortunately, she had been lucky enough to find ways to get away unscathed or avoid confrontation altogether. Running was always preferred, but not always an option depending on the situation. Even with her uncharacteristically stocky build, she was Khajiit, and athletic to an extent. Outrunning non-beast folk was usually a feat she could accomplish. At least for a little while anyways. While she was fast, she did lack endurance. Veejah was more of a sprinter if she was being honest with herself. Running long distances wasn't exactly her forte. She was better with her hands; building barns, fixing farm machinery, restoring old weapons, she could do it all if she set her mind to it, though she was too modest and insecure at times to really let herself believe it.

"Lemme see," Blondie handed the knife over to the goliath, hilt first. The Nord's paws dwarfed the small blade as he studied it with mildly growing interest, then thumbed the edge to test its sharpness. She noticed a small bead of blood form on his thumb and felt a sliver of smug satisfaction. The bearded man furrowed his bushy brows (which Veejah thought looked like caterpillars) and nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied with whatever he was searching for. He offered it to the Breton girl, but she curtly shook her head no, not taking her sharp eyes off Veejah nor her callused hands off her ax. She saw him shrug and then offer her blade back to the Golden Boy, and much to her dismay, he took it back.

"You know," said Pretty Boy. "I think I'll keep it!" he announced jovially.

"The rest of this is all junk." Veejah felt a spike of rage rise up at that little snide remark, that _junk_ is… was her lively hood, kept her from begging on the streets for a measly meal like so many other unfortunate fools. Took her forever everything in her collection and she was _not_ thrilled at the prospect of potentially doing it all over again.

"Our little friend here," Pretty boy turned his gaze on to the Khajiit with a toothy smile, "must've been a poor little working gal, couldn't even find a septim."

"We gon' take 'er?" asked the behemoth.

"What?!" Her anger all but disappeared as fear overtook her. _Take her?_ She wondered where, why? Veejah didn't like the direction this conversation was going at _all_. She needed to go, _now_. Veejah bolted, made it one, two three steps before she felt someone grab her arm and roughly pull her back. She collided with a hard body and started to struggle furiously, but the struggle was short lived, her captor painfully yanked her arm behind her back in such a way that it felt like it was about to pop from her shoulder, making her cry out in pain much to her dismay. The cool press of metal against the soft flesh of her throat followed after none too gently, it was the Breton and her ax.

"What'er you doing? L-let go! You have my things! I did what you asked!"

"Quite, cat!" yelled the Breton right in her sensitive ears. Veejah felt her ax dig further into her russet fur, slicing it easily. She gulped, regretting it when she felt the sting of the ax cutting the tender flesh of her throat. Her fur would be crusty and matted with blood, she was sure.

"Aw, Gweyn," Blondie said. "Didn't be so mean!" He came closer, her only weapon held threateningly in his hands.

'Loook, the kitties scared." He lazily pointed her knife at her face, she bared her fangs.

"Ha! Olan, look at those teeth! She'd fit right in at the pits. Just like a little sabre cat." _Sabre cat my arse_

"Yeah," he said. A quick glance told her he probably didn't agree with the prettier Nord. Or maybe he just didn't care. She did, however, wish at this point that she really did resemble a sabre cat a bit more. She imagined her sabre cat-self biting the guy's throat out. It almost made her feel a little better. Almost.

"Look Rhavnar," it was the Breton girl. "You done playin' around yet? Gettin' real tired of your games." The woman said this right in her ears, she could feel her hot breath tickling the fur in her ears, making her ears twitch and accidentally flick her captor in the face.

" _Stop it_ ," she hissed in her fuzzy ear again and tweaked her arm painfully to make her point clear. Veejah made a mental note to not fool with the Breton.

"Alright, alright, Gweyn." He lifted his hands up as if to surrender.

"You're the boss," he said with a twinkle in his eye. Veejah thought she might've felt the ax tighten around her throat just a bit when the Nord said that, but wasn't entirely sure. She was positive, however, that her throat and arm sure did hurt.

Pretty boy turned his attention back to the hulking giant, Olan with sudden new flair to his step.

"Olan," the heavily armored man didn't reply, but gave him his appealingly tired, yet rapt attention. The Nord seemed to think that was enough and continued.

"Could you ah, do the honors?" he said with another one of his smirks. She wondered what that meant, but had a terrible sinking feeling in her gut when she saw the frighteningly imposing figure of the armored Olan approaching.

"W-w-wait! No! Don't d-"His armored fist collided with her face. Hard. Her vision blurred and she wondered if the man had managed to crack her skull in two. She felt herself slump against the Bretons woman's tight hold as her legs gave out. Vaguely, she recalled that the ax was no longer threatening to rip open a brand new hole in her neck, but couldn't focus enough for that train of thought to really register.

"Gods she's heavy," Veejah felt herself drop the rest of the way to the damp, pebbley soil.

"Damn, she's still…" someone said. Veejah tried to focus, to stand, but her face, her head… it hurt...

"… must be… of stone."

"Olan!… her again"

"Sorry, Lass."

There was another bout of blinding pain, then nothing.

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 **Authors Note: So, I suppose you could say this is my first real attempt at writing something decent. Hopefully I'll stick with it and not flake (because that's a thing I do, ya know).**

 **Anyways! I'd LOVE to know what you think! Do you like the characters? Hows the writing? Can't get into it? Hate it? Wanna see more? See it burn? Too confusing or maybe I'm not giving you time to come up with your own conclusion? Any review is absolutely welcomed (for the most part lol, lets not call each other names here!)! Thanks for reading!**

 **Actually, one last thing. I don't own Elder Scrolls at aall. If I did, Then there would be an Elsweyr instead of a Skyrim game. Gotta love Khajiit.**

 **Ok. I lied. Got more to say. I'm going to be taking some uh, artistic liberty with this story. So some things are going to be a bit different than what the lore says or what the game is like. For example, getting from Whiterun to Riverwood isn't going to take a couple of hours IF that. It might take a couple days journey. AND cities are going to be larger and have more folks (some of them). Markarth is gonna be big and have loads of people living there, as well as Solitude. They seem too empty to me in game.**


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